A Generalized Porosity Formalism For Isotropic And Anisotropic Effective Opacity And Its Effects On X-Ray Line Attenuation In Clumped O Star Winds

We present a generalized formalism for treating the porosity-associated reduction in continuum opacity that occurs when individual clumps in a stochastic medium become optically thick. As in previous work, we concentrate on developing bridging laws between the limits of optically thin and thick clumps. We consider geometries resulting in either isotropic or anisotropic effective opacity, and, in addition to an idealized model in which all clumps have the same local overdensity and scale, we also treat an ensemble of clumps with optical depths set by Markovian statistics. This formalism is then applied to the specific case of boundfree absorption of X-rays in hot star winds, a process not directly affected by clumping in the optically thin limit. We find that the Markov model gives surprisingly similar results to those found previously for the single-clump model, suggesting that porous opacity is not very sensitive to details of the assumed clump distribution function. Further, an anisotropic effective opacity favours escape of X-rays emitted in the tangential direction (the venetian blind effect), resulting in a bump of higher flux close to line centre as compared to profiles computed from isotropic porosity models. We demonstrate how this characteristic line shape may be used to diagnose the clump geometry, and we confirm previous results that for optically thick clumping to significantly influence X-ray line profiles, very large porosity lengths, defined as the mean free path between clumps, are required. Moreover, we present the first X-ray line profiles computed directly from line-driven instability simulations using a 3D patch method, and find that porosity effects from such models also are very small. This further supports the view that porosity has, at most, a marginal effect on X-ray line diagnostics in O stars, and therefore that these diagnostics do indeed provide a good clumping insensitive method for deriving O star mass-loss rates

A dynamical magnetosphere model for periodic Halpha emission from the slowly rotating magnetic O star HD191612

The magnetic O-star HD191612 exhibits strongly variable, cyclic Balmer line emission on a 538-day period. We show here that its variable Halpha emission can be well reproduced by the rotational phase variation of synthetic spectra computed directly from full radiation magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of a magnetically confined wind. In slow rotators such as HD191612, wind material on closed magnetic field loops falls back to the star, but the transient suspension of material within the loops leads to a statistically overdense, low velocity region around the magnetic equator, causing the spectral variations. We contrast such "dynamical magnetospheres" (DMs) with the more steady-state "centrifugal magnetospheres" of stars with rapid rotation, and discuss the prospects of using this DM paradigm to explain periodic line emission from also other non-rapidly rotating magnetic massive stars.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS letter

Wind Channeling, Magnetospheres, And Spindown Of Magnetic Massive Stars

A subpopulation (~10%) of hot, luminous, massive stars have been revealed through spectropolarimetry to harbor strong (hundreds to tens of thousand Gauss), steady, large-scale (often significantly dipolar) magnetic fields. This review focuses on the role of such fields in channeling and trapping the radiatively driven wind of massive stars, including both in the strongly perturbed outflow from open field regions, and the wind-fed “magnetospheres” that develop from closed magnetic loops. For B-type stars with weak winds and moderately fast rotation, one finds “centrifugal magnetospheres”, in which rotational support allows magnetically trapped wind to accumulate to a large density, with quite distinctive observational signatures, e.g. in Balmer line emission. In contrast, more luminous O-type stars have generally been spun down by magnetic braking from angular momentum loss in their much stronger winds. The lack of centrifugal support means their closed loops form a “dynamical magnetosphere”, with trapped material falling back to the star on a dynamical timescale; nonetheless, the much stronger wind feeding leads to a circumstellar density that is still high enough to give substantial Balmer emission. Overall, this review describes MHD simulations and semi-analytic dynamical methods for modeling the magnetospheres, the magnetically channeled wind outflows, and the associated spin-down of these magnetic massive stars

An `Analytic Dynamical Magnetosphere' formalism for X-ray and optical emission from slowly rotating magnetic massive stars

Slowly rotating magnetic massive stars develop "dynamical magnetospheres" (DM's), characterized by trapping of stellar wind outflow in closed magnetic loops, shock heating from collision of the upflow from opposite loop footpoints, and subsequent gravitational infall of radiatively cooled material. In 2D and 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations the interplay among these three components is spatially complex and temporally variable, making it difficult to derive observational signatures and discern their overall scaling trends.Within a simplified, steady-state analysis based on overall conservation principles, we present here an "analytic dynamical magnetosphere" (ADM) model that provides explicit formulae for density, temperature and flow speed in each of these three components -- wind outflow, hot post-shock gas, and cooled inflow -- as a function of colatitude and radius within the closed (presumed dipole) field lines of the magnetosphere. We compare these scalings with time-averaged results from MHD simulations, and provide initial examples of application of this ADM model for deriving two key observational diagnostics, namely hydrogen H-alpha emission line profiles from the cooled infall, and X-ray emission from the hot post-shock gas. We conclude with a discussion of key issues and advantages in applying this ADM formalism toward derivation of a broader set of observational diagnostics and scaling trends for massive stars with such dynamical magnetospheres.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for MNRA

Características morfogênicas e estruturais de Brachiaria ruziziensis submetida a níveis de sombreamento.

o objetivo desse trabalho foi determinar e avaliar as características morfogênicas e estruturais da B. ruziziensis submetida a diferentes níveis de sombreamento

Lorentz Violation of Quantum Gravity

A quantum gravity theory which becomes renormalizable at short distances due to a spontaneous symmetry breaking of Lorentz invariance and diffeomorphism invariance is studied. A breaking of Lorentz invariance with the breaking patterns $SO(3,1)\to O(3)$ and $SO(3,1)\to O(2)$, describing 3+1 and 2+1 quantum gravity, respectively, is proposed. A complex time dependent Schr\"odinger equation (generalized Wheeler-DeWitt equation) for the wave function of the universe exists in the spontaneously broken symmetry phase at Planck energy and in the early universe, uniting quantum mechanics and general relativity. An explanation of the second law of thermodynamics and the spontaneous creation of matter in the early universe can be obtained in the symmetry broken phase of gravity.Comment: 10 pages, minor change and reference added. Typos corrected. To be published in Class. Quant. Grav

Revisiting the Rigidly Rotating Magnetosphere model for sigma Ori E. I. Observations and Data Analysis

We have obtained 18 new high-resolution spectropolarimetric observations of the B2Vp star sigma Ori E with both the Narval and ESPaDOnS spectropolarimeters. The aim of these observations is to test, with modern data, the assumptions of the Rigidly Rotating Magnetosphere (RRM) model of Townsend & Owocki (2005), applied to the specific case of sigma Ori E by Townsend et al. (2005). This model includes a substantially offset dipole magnetic field configuration, and approximately reproduces previous observational variations in longitudinal field strength, photometric brightness, and Halpha emission. We analyze new spectroscopy, including H I, He I, C II, Si III and Fe III lines, confirming the diversity of variability in photospheric lines, as well as the double S-wave variation of circumstellar hydrogen. Using the multiline analysis method of Least-Squares Deconvolution (LSD), new, more precise longitudinal magnetic field measurements reveal a substantial variance between the shapes of the observed and RRM model time-varying field. The phase resolved Stokes V profiles of He I 5876 A and 6678 A lines are fit poorly by synthetic profiles computed from the magnetic topology assumed by Townsend et al. (2005). These results challenge the offset dipole field configuration assumed in the application of the RRM model to sigma Ori E, and indicate that future models of its magnetic field should also include complex, higher-order components.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

L-branes

The superembedding approach to $p$-branes is used to study a class of $p$-branes which have linear multiplets on the worldvolume. We refer to these branes as L-branes. Although linear multiplets are related to scalar multiplets (with 4 or 8 supersymmetries) by dualising one of the scalars of the latter to a $p$-form field strength, in many geometrical situations it is the linear multiplet version which arises naturally. Furthermore, in the case of 8 supersymmetries, the linear multiplet is off-shell in contrast to the scalar multiplet. The dynamics of the L-branes are obtained by using a systematic procedure for constructing the Green-Schwarz action from the superembedding formalism. This action has a Dirac-Born-Infeld type structure for the $p$-form. In addition, a set of equations of motion is postulated directly in superspace, and is shown to agree with the Green-Schwarz equations of motion.Comment: revised version, minor changes, references added, 22 pages, no figures, LaTe

Revisiting the Rigidly Rotating Magnetosphere model for σ\sigma Ori E - II. Magnetic Doppler imaging, arbitrary field RRM, and light variability

The initial success of the Rigidly Rotating Magnetosphere (RRM) model application to the B2Vp star sigma OriE by Townsend, Owocki & Groote (2005) triggered a renewed era of observational monitoring of this archetypal object. We utilize high-resolution spectropolarimetry and the magnetic Doppler imaging (MDI) technique to simultaneously determine the magnetic configuration, which is predominately dipolar, with a polar strength Bd = 7.3-7.8 kG and a smaller non-axisymmetric quadrupolar contribution, as well as the surface distribution of abundance of He, Fe, C, and Si. We describe a revised RRM model that now accepts an arbitrary surface magnetic field configuration, with the field topology from the MDI models used as input. The resulting synthetic Ha emission and broadband photometric observations generally agree with observations, however, several features are poorly fit. To explore the possibility of a photospheric contribution to the observed photometric variability, the MDI abundance maps were used to compute a synthetic photospheric light curve to determine the effect of the surface inhomogeneities. Including the computed photospheric brightness modulation fails to improve the agreement between the observed and computed photometry. We conclude that the discrepancies cannot be explained as an effect of inhomogeneous surface abundance. Analysis of the UV light variability shows good agreement between observed variability and computed light curves, supporting the accuracy of the photospheric light variation calculation. We thus conclude that significant additional physics is necessary for the RRM model to acceptably reproduce observations of not only sigma Ori E, but also other similar stars with significant stellar wind-magnetic field interactions.Comment: 16 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA